Sioux Slave (8 page)

There was just one question he wanted to ask. “Music . . . I thought I heard familiar music.”

Kimi shrugged. “It is my song,” she stopped humming, “my spirit song. It has always been mine to sing.”

Simple enough explanation, Rand thought, for such an ancient, universal song. Perhaps a passing missionary or priest had taught it to her. Yes, that was a reasonable explanation as to why a half-breed Sioux girl out in the middle of the wilderness knew the tune to “Greensleeves.”

Old Wagnuka lay staring into the darkness of the tipi, listening to Kimi's gentle breathing as the girl slept. Wagnuka wished she could sleep, but her mind was on the hated white soldier tied up in the lodge Mato had meant to share with his bride.

Hinzi had been in this camp over a week now and Wagnuka felt more uneasy every day. At first she had hoped he would die of his injuries, but the more he suffered, the more Kimi worried over him and looked after him. She said it was because he was important as a hostage, and maybe even she believed that. Wagnuka did not. She had seen the looks they gave each other, even as they hurled angry, defiant words. The old Sioux woman was wise in the ways of men and women. She had lived a long, long time. Kimi was not going to be hurt by a white man as she herself had had her heart broken.

Quietly she sat up, trying to decide what to do. If she could get away with it, she would sneak in and kill the soldier. She would have no qualms about driving a dagger deep in his lying heart. She would close her eyes and pretend it was that long ago white fur trapper. However, not only would that be defying the old chiefs' orders, it would upset Kimi and make her hate Wagnuka if she found out who had done it.

She would do anything to protect her beloved daughter–anything. No sacrifice was too great. She sneaked outside into the warm spring night. Her old bones always ached but not as badly with the warmer weather This year, the warmer weather brought little relief. How many winters had she seen? Sixty? Seventy?

Time had a way of running faster and faster as one season blended into the next. How many more years she had left, Wagnuka didn't know or even care. She had had her share of love, and heartache, too. Her husband Ptan was no doubt waiting on the Spirit Road for her. All that kept her here now was that she worried lest she die leaving her daughter without the protection of a good husband. Right now, the two women were living off the generosity of good hunters such as One Eye and Gopher, Ptan's friends. This couldn't last. Kimi needed her own man to see that she and her old mother were well-fed in the coming months.

Somewhere sungmanitu, the coyote, howled and its mate answered back. The prairie breeze carried the scent of wild flowers and camp fire smoke. Wagnuka listened a long moment to the sound of the horse herd grazing near the camp. She knew all the sentries on duty since they were young boys. The camp and its herds were safe from surprise as long as mighty braves like those watched for enemies.

What to do about the white soldier? Had he guessed the secret about Kimimila? If he were ransomed by the white soldiers, would he tell the Great White Father about the girl with green eyes? All these years, Wagnuka and her husband had made sure no white men got a good look at Kimi. If they did, they would take her away. She knew how white men lusted after pretty girls and took them with no more thought than a mustang stallion would top a stray mare. She had lost one child to the whites. She did not intend to lose another.

With a mutilated hand, she stroked her wrinkled arm, still marred with knife cuts of mourning for her son-in-law and scars of mourning for her dead husband. What to do about the Hinzi? If she dare not kill him, what else could she do? If he escaped, he might bring the soldiers back with him to take the pretty Kimi away. On the other hand, if he stayed, his smiles might turn the innocent girl's head until she believed his avowals of love. The soldier would treat her like white men always treated Indian women. Not many warriors would take a girl who carried a white man's child in her belly.

If she dare not kill him nor set him free to return with soldiers to take Kimi away, what could she do? Kimi was dear to her She had lost so many children to this harsh life.

Several of the grazing horses whinnied again. Wagnuka looked around the sleeping camp and stared at the tipi where the soldier slept. He was already attempting to make friends with the small children of the camp, learning the Lakota language. It was only a matter of time until some naive girl such as Kimi either trusted him enough to let him escape or ended up in his blankets. Wagnuka had no such illusions about the whites; she had lived too long, seen too much. A trapper had taught Wagnuka more than just the white man's language. Whatever it took to stop this same threat to her daughter, Wagnuka was going to do.

Tomorrow night. Yes, that was the right time. Tomorrow she would make plans. This decision made, she hobbled back to her tipi. Kimi had not stirred. With any luck and some prayers to Wakan Tanka, the girl need never know what had really happened or that Wagnuka had any part in his escape attempt.

At dawn, after feeding the white slave and seeing that he was much improved, Kimi made her decision. “You are not hurt as badly as you pretend,” she declared, “and other members of the tribe have already been more than generous in providing food.”

He looked at her, curiosity in his blue eyes. “What is it you want of me?”

“I am going to trade your labor to others for the things my mother and I need.”

He drew himself up indignantly, cursed under his breath. “You can't treat me like a damned slave! Do you know who I am? My father is one of the richest men in all Kentucky and my mother is a Randolph, the most aristocratic family in the old South.”

“You
are
a lowly slave,” Kimi said coldly, “and don't forget it. You will do as I order.”

“Suppose I won't?” He had just a touch of arrogant defiance in his drawl.

Kimi shrugged. “Then I will beat you, just as you might do a black slave.”

“I don't beat my slaves,” he snapped.

“Do as you are told, and I won't beat you either,” Kimi said. Although she didn't want to admit it, even to herself, she had been more than a little annoyed with him over his whispering the name of that white girl in his delirium. No doubt she herself must look like some primitive, ugly savage beside this elegant Lenore. “You need to learn better manners and a little humility.”

For a long moment, she expected an outburst, but instead he took a deep breath, as if struggling to control himself, and gave her a charming smile. “Of course. Forgive me for thinking my life is my own. I forget my life depends on your good will.”

She wasn't to be fooled by his attempts to charm her. Kimi called in an old warrior who owned a pair of leg-irons and chains from the time he had spent in the white man's stockade for stealing a little food when hungry. With the heavy irons on his ankles and his hands chained behind him, the big white soldier could be used as a beast of burden around the camp without fear that he might get his hands on a weapon or be of any danger.

His ragged blue pants had been torn away. All he wore now as he stood there awaiting her orders was a small breechcloth Kimi had found for him and the pair of moccasins she had made for Mato.

The brief bit of leather barely hid his prominent maleness. It angered her that she couldn't keep her emotions in check when she looked at the man's body. She remembered again the taste of his mouth, the feel of his yellow hair so much like the silk of the corn the Sioux's hated enemies grew. His hair was getting a bit long for a white man. She stared at the light-colored hair on his massive chest and wondered how it would feel brushing ever so gently against the swollen tips of her nipples.

When she looked up, he almost seemed to be smiling as if he had read her erotic thoughts. An angry, hot flush rushed to her burning cheeks. “That leg needs exercise to strengthen it anyway.” She picked up a small quirt. “All right, yellow-haired slave, your work as a beast of burden awaits you.”

She heard him swear softly under his breath.

“Hinzi, what is it you say?”

“Nothing, mistress,” he ducked his head humbly. “I await your orders.”

The soldier was stronger than even Kimi had thought. With a harness around his big chest, he dragged wood from the creek to the camp on a travois and carried sacks of dried meat on his back while small children trailed along behind him curiously.

Others in the camp nodded approval. “The white slave is strong and it is only just that he labor to provide meat for the widow of the slain warrior the soldiers killed.”

Kimi felt a little uneasy working him like a beast of burden, but it seemed to still his arrogant attitude, and her mother smiled for the first time in days. More than that, Kimi wanted to do favors for those in the camp who had been giving the three food, and Hinzi did eat a lot.

What she didn't want to admit even to herself was that she was getting a bit of satisfaction out of his humiliation. She would teach him to look at her and think of some beautiful white girl.

At noon, she let him rest a moment by the creek and brought him a bowl of stew. He looked from it to her. “Are you going to unchain me so I can eat?”

“Beasts of burden don't need to use their hands,” Kimi said coldly, “and you aren't dangerous with your hands behind you. Eat with your hands chained or starve.”

The look on his face told her that if he could, he would grab her, rub her face in the stew, but he took a deep breath. “Yes, mistress. Whatever you say.” He went down on his knees, ate out of the bowl like a dog. With his hands chained behind him, he could do nothing else. Then he hobbled to the creek, chains jangling and put his face down to the water, lapped it up. “I'm too tired to work any more,” he announced.

“There's a little more to do,” Kimi commanded, “and you will work until I say you can stop.”

He acted as if he might argue, then kept his silence as she put the harness on him again. When he threw his strength into the load of buffalo hides he dragged on the travois, his muscles rippled, and she saw the tendons of his lean, almost naked hips quiver as he threw his weight against the harness.

He was deliberately working as slowly as possible, Kimi thought; an obstinate show of defiance. Before she thought, she snapped the little quirt at him as she would a lagging horse. She hadn't meant to, but the tip of the lash caught him across the back.

He glared over his shoulder with eyes as cold as blue ice, swearing softly. The anger on his face was frightening. “If I could get out of these chains, I'd show you–”

“What is it you say?” She demanded, wincing at the red weal she had put across his skin. She hadn't really meant to hit him. There was something about his whispering that other woman's name, defying Kimi that infuriated her. She would break this stallion's spirit. Maybe when he seemed more like a mild beast of burden than a man, she could free herself of this terrible attraction she felt and get on with finding herself a new husband among the braves.

 

 

That night she fed him, left him chained in his lodge. “You did well today,” she said. “Other women have asked that you haul things for them tomorrow. No wonder whites keep slaves. It is useful to have one around to do heavy work.”

“Go to hell.”

“What did you say?”

He seemed to struggle with himself, gritting his teeth. “I said I would be happy to work as a horse tomorrow for my owner, if only she won't whip me with her quirt again.”

Kimi retired for the night to her own tipi. She lay listening to her mother snore and thinking about the soldier. She had meant to break his spirit, humiliate him for his obvious attempts in trying to charm her into letting down her guard so he could escape. More than that, she was a bit jealous of this privileged girl so far away that the Hinzi lusted after.

After a long time, Kimi finally dropped off to sleep, and her dreams were full of images of the soldier's lean hips straining with power as he pulled the travois, of the muscles in his back cording as he threw himself against the harness. In her mind, she saw the two of them in a solitary area near the creek. He would break his chains and turn on her, wrench the quirt from her hand, grab her. She would try to scream for help, but his tongue would be in her mouth so that she could only moan. They would go down together on the soft grass in a tangle of warm skin, cold, steel chains and his hot mouth all over her bare body. His lean, hard hips quivered with power as he rammed into her, holding onto her breasts with his big hands.

Old Wagnuka lay very still, listening. Kimi's gentle breathing told her the girl finally slept after hours of restless turning. Now was the time to put her plan in action. She had sensed the sexual tension between the two; it crackled like summer lightning waiting to explode violently into fire. If Wagnuka didn't do something about Hinzi soon, he would end up mating with Kimi if he had to take her by force. The way Kimi had been looking at the lean, almost naked man, Wagnuka was afraid he wouldn't have to use force. Kimi was a ripe young woman, probably eighteen winters old, and the mating urge was strong in her loins. If she didn't take a husband soon, she might succumb to the charm of this white soldier whose manhood hung as big and heavy as some herd stallion's.

She got up and sneaked from the tipi into the night.

 

 

Rand came awake suddenly, listening. He'd thought he'd heard someone's step. He lay there a long time, holding his breath. No sound. Maybe he had only imagined it. While he had been pretending to be more injured than he was the last few days as his leg healed quickly, he still hadn't figured out a way to escape, and he knew that there were Sioux in this camp who would like to see him dead.

For instance, Kimi's mother. He'd seen the way she looked at him. Well, maybe the old woman had good reason. If Kimi were a half-breed as Rand suspected, obviously the old woman had been seduced and betrayed by a white man many years ago and feared Rand would do the same to Kimi.

Not that he hadn't thought about it. In fact he'd thought about it a lot. Kimi might be his only hope of escaping this Indian camp. If he could charm her into falling in love with him, she might help him escape. It would help to have his hands free. Before he'd become engaged to Lenore, he had been a rake among wenches and street sluts. He planned to stay true to Lenore after they were married, but it would be a difficult thing to do when he was a virile man and she was as cold as she was chaste. Rand was skilled with women. If he could ever stroke Kimi, caress her breasts, kiss her mouth, he was certain he could make her fall in love with him, and she could be cajoled into helping him escape.